


(Fact) Finders, (Knowledge) Keepers

by Papook



Series: Jocasta Jones and the Librarian Clones [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I promise, LIIL Squad, NO ONE DIES even if it seems like they might at first, Star Wars AU - Soft Wars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:13:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27149912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Papook/pseuds/Papook
Summary: Every story, much like every journey, begins with a single step.LIIL Squad's begins with a single pissed off comm call.
Relationships: Jocasta Nu & Shaak Ti
Series: Jocasta Jones and the Librarian Clones [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1951591
Comments: 43
Kudos: 276
Collections: Open Source Soft Wars





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, many many thanks to [Primarybufferpanel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArwenLune/pseuds/Primarybufferpanel) for giving this a once-over.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I always felt, if I can get to a library, I’ll be ok." - Maya Angelou

Jocasta’s comm rang, the piercing Togruti whistle she had assigned to Shaak after a night of drinking terrible things and swapping worse stories. Shaak had laughed at her and her sad human attempts to mimic Togruta vocalizations, and Jo had needled her into demonstrating a _real_ whistle on some drunken idiots who thought catcalling was a good idea. A few of their faint shrieks were still audible at the end of the recorded loop. Shaak twitched every time she heard it. That was half the reason Jo kept it as her comm tone. 

The other reason was that it was, in fact, _piercing_. They were both so busy, stretched farther and farther these days, especially since the blasted war began, and Jo hated the thought of missing even one all too rare comm call from her best friend. That whistle was guaranteed to grab her attention.

Fortunately she was in her quarters and not the Archives when it sounded. Chief Archivist she might be, but she was not exempt from the good manners she expected of everyone who entered her sphere of stewardship. Best not to indulge in hypocrisy.

She accepted the call. "Hel–lo?!" Her greeting morphed into an undignified yelp. Shaak was _pacing_ , prowling back and forth through the comm pickup zone in clear agitation. It was the most violently emotive Jo had seen Shaak in decades. "Shaak! What in the name of the Force is wrong?!"

"Did you know the Kaminoans _decommission_ clones they consider defective?" Shaak said, voice as sharp and precise as her fangs.

"Decommission?" Jo was still struggling to come up to speed, still thrown by the sight of Shaak losing her legendary control. She had seen that happen exactly once since Shaak’s Knighting, when they had been sent to retrieve a kidnapped diplomat and found that the kidnappers had taken the diplomat’s family as well. One of the kidnappers had threatened to kill one of the children. He had not survived the encounter.

"Euthanize." Shaak spit the word.

Horror rendered Jocasta mute. But Shaak had plenty to say to fill the silence.

"Anyone they see as _flawed,_ anyone who fails to meet _acceptable training standards_ , anyone who expresses so much as a _spark_ of creativity or individuality or stubbornness—even for something as minor as having a cosmetic mutation that gives them different colored hair! For asking too many questions, for having a conflicting opinion, for being _difficult_ or _disruptive_ or Force knows what! They're killing them for daring to be _people_ ," Shaak snarled. "People instead of _products_." She jerked to a standstill in a swirl of robes, hands clenched, lekku stiff with anger and horror and helplessness, and swallowed hard, grief rising through her fury. "People that I can't save."

"Send them to me," Jo heard herself say, breaking Shaak’s oncoming spiral into guilt. Shaak's focus snapped to her, laser sharp even through the holocomm. Jo shook off her nausea and growing rage and looked squarely at her friend.

"Send them to me," Jo repeated with growing surety. The Force was singing. Plans started flicking through her mind. There would be some on the Council who might object, but they could go straight to the Sith Hells for all she cared. She was _not_ going to condemn innocent men to execution simply because bringing non-Jedi to work in the Archives flew in the face of tradition.

If they tried to argue with her, she would stress to them that being overly attached to tradition was as damning as being unhealthily attached to people. And if _that_ didn’t work, she would happily remind them—at lightsaber point, if necessary—why she was the battlemaster’s favorite sparring partner. She doubted it would come to that; no Jedi would condone the killing of clones, but sudden change made even Jedi reactionary and stupid and she had no time to waste waiting for them to come to their senses. "Do what you have to do to get the supposedly faulty ones sent here. I will find a place for them. I will _make_ a place for them." 

Hope and relief dawned on Shaak’s face, and her lekku began to relax. "To do what?" she asked.

"To _live_." Jo straightened her shoulders and smiled, sharp and sly. "I always need more librarians, especially now. And what better place is there for something unique than a library?"

*****

CT-3670 curled around his crossed arms and tried not to cry. He wasn't sure why he bothered, honestly. Did it matter anymore? Had it ever mattered? Staying stoic and suppressing tears hadn't helped him avoid this fate. Maybe it just prolonged the inevitable. All the times he'd avoided crying when things went wrong, when he got in trouble again and again—it didn't matter now. His brothers were moving on without him. They were moving on, moving up, and he was being left behind. Sent away.

Soon to be marching far away.

The door irised open, and a cadet he didn't recognize stepped stiffly through it. Seven-Oh did recognize the look in his eyes. The suppressed terror, the disbelief, the loss. He looked down at the floor again, didn't say anything.

The quiet was thick, suffocating. He felt it wrapping cold tendrils around him, creeping in his ears, down his lungs, curling heavy through his fingers. He could taste it chalky-bitter in his throat.

The door hissed again. He glanced up. Three more brothers, coming in together but moving separately. Not batchers or squadmates. Strangers, all five of them, only bound together by shared genetics and a shared end.

They waited. He wondered if he should say something. If there was anything to say. He could ask for names, but what was the point? He wouldn't be around long to say them in a Remembrance.

He didn't have a name to tell them, anyway.

The door hissed. He looked up, expecting another brother, jerked when he saw General Ti instead. He knew he had been made for the Jedi; the trainers hammered that in hard enough. He just hadn't thought that he would be disposed of by the Jedi, too. He thought distantly that he might be hurt by that, but everything inside him seemed frozen by the choking silence, walled away behind ice. He creaked belatedly to his feet, last one of a ragged, uneven tide of salutes, regulation perfect and reeking of fear.

"At ease, please," General Ti said softly. He moved to parade rest. It might be the last time. Better make it a good one. The General looked around the room, eyes unreadable in her unfamiliar face. "I am here to conduct you all to your future assignment. If you are ready, we will leave now."

He hadn't thought it would be so soon. He wasn't sure why, but he thought he would have a little more time. Life on Kamino wasn't much, but it was his, and there was more it had to offer than what his future held. But he was a clone, a number, and they were made for the Jedi, so he nodded with the rest and followed General Ti out of the room.

The ice in his mind chipped a little when she turned right instead of left. Left was the labs. Left was the way they were supposed to go, the way the defective clones were always taken. Right was the exterior doors. Right was….

They walked to a blast door. It opened onto a landing pad and a transport, washed with the ever present rain. They walked out. Seven-Oh instinctively braced himself for the cold sting of water.

It never came.

He blinked. Breathed, swallowed. Looked up. The rain streamed down an invisible barrier above them, curving rivulets that spent themselves on the slick platform without ever touching their little column. A tunnel of water, all the way to the open door of the transport.

A stubborn spark of wonder flickered beneath the frozen dread.

They walked to the transport, climbed on, strapped in, Seven-Oh’s fingers moving mechanically through the motions even as confusion skittered over the ice in his mind. General Ti vanished into the cockpit, and the ship rumbled to life and lifted off. It shuddered through the cloud cover, then Kamino's stratosphere.

The minutes stretched; the silence dripped. Only once the artificial gravity kicked in did someone speak.

"I thought I was being sent to decom." It was barely a whisper above the thrum of the engines.

"Me too," breathed the cadet on Seven-Oh’s right.

Seven-Oh nodded, one sharp jerk. The last two cadets agreed.

" _None of you_ are being decommissioned." Every head snapped to the door. General Ti met their eyes, montrals tipped proudly and durasteel in her gaze. "You have all been _specifically_ requested for a special assignment at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant."

"But–" It slipped out, choked and involuntary. He failed to smother his flinch.

She looked at him. "Yes, cadet?"

He shouldn't. He _knew_ he shouldn't, he'd fallen into this trap a thousand times before, he knew she didn't actually want to hear his question—but he was still driven to ask.

_"Why?"_ What could the Jedi possibly want with _him?_ Why would they ever want him at the _Temple?_

"Why you, specifically?"

He gulped. "Yes, sir."

Her gaze was heavy on his skin. "Because you ask that question, CT-3670. Because you _ask questions_ _."_ She looked at the others, one by one. "I was asked to select a group of the most independent, inquisitive, and intelligent thinkers I could find. Clones who _don't_ just blindly follow orders, but who question them. Who question _everything_ _."_ She smiled, faintly predatory, the cabin lights glinting on her sharper teeth. "Madame Nu was very insistent about that."

That...that couldn’t be right. No superior officer actually _wanted_ a problematic clone in their troop. He glanced around the circle of brothers. Everyone looked bewildered, stunned, disbelieving.

"What's the assignment, sir?" The brother closest to the door said hesitantly, but with a look Seven-Oh recognized. The need to _know_.

General Ti placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. "You and your brothers are assigned to the Jedi Archives under the care of Jedi Master Jocasta Nu. She intends to train you as librarians, although that is likely only scratching the surface of what she is planning to teach you. She has always been voracious in the pursuit of knowledge and never shy in spreading it to other people." She smiled again, softer, fond. "I need to contact Madame Nu to tell her you are on your way. She has been eagerly awaiting your arrival." She smiled one more time and turned back to the cockpit.

No one but his batchers had ever been _eager_ to see him.

Ice shattered. Wonder burned. 

"You okay there, vod?" The brother next to him jostled his arm gently.

"No," Seven-Oh choked.

"Yeah. Me neither," he said, and curled his arm around Seven-Oh’s shoulders. Seven-Oh turned to him and clung, tears flowing freely for the first time in years.

*****

CT-3435 let out an explosive breath and slumped as much as the jump harness would allow. His shoulder still burned with the warmth of General Ti’s hand, branded there in his memory as a reminder of the first time someone other than a vod had actually answered one of his questions. _Clones who question everything_. It was...quite a change, for a vod who had been reprimanded so many times for questions that his record was more black than anything. His head was swimming with it.

“So,” he said, half because he wanted to know, half to keep himself from bursting into tears like the two vod across from him. “Looks like we’re a squad now. Any names?”

Four denials. Three-Five wished he was surprised. “CT-3435,” he offered. “Got sent to decom because the _di'kut_ in charge of my squad kept giving contradictory orders and I kept calling him on it.” Better to own it now, even if it nearly scared him shitless. But that’s what got him sent off to the Jedi headquarters, right? He needed to get used to it, get used to having it known.

“CT-9481. Saw a trainer do a _thing_ ,” the vod next to him said, and no one asked what the thing was. Not when Eight-One said it in that tone.

“CT-3609,” the next vod said. “Put myself between a bully and a squadmate too many times, I guess. Too ‘disruptive to training’, apparently.” Which probably meant his trainer was a bastard and Oh-Nine did something to counter it on the regular.

“CT-9785.” That was the vod holding the other crier. “Trainer got in some sort of pissing match with another one on the range, ran us all into the ground to prove he was better, ‘cept I spent more time in the edu-sims than on the range. Sent me off to...here...when he found me with the Littles on my downtime instead of running extra laps or some _osik.”_

The last vod finally uncurled from Eight-Five’s hold. “CT-3670,” he sniffled. “Too curious, crap at following orders without questions, couldn’t keep my mouth shut, looked a few too many times in the wrong places at the wrong times, take your pick,” Seven-Oh said tiredly. “M’squad got split up for specializations, couldn’t ‘reign me in’ anymore, trainer finally saw his chance and I got put in the trash heap.”

“Amazing, that all the things a trainer would praise in a CC landed us here,” Three-FIve drawled. “Probably burns the Kaminiise that they couldn’t engineer out the brains from the cannon fodder.”

“Sucks to suck,” Eight-One deadpanned.

Seven-Oh snorted out a startled giggle, and suddenly they were all laughing. It was raw and tinged with hysteria, but it was finally starting to sink in that they _weren’t_ being sent off to die. Apparently all the things that made them terrible privates would make them good librarians. 

Whatever a librarian was. 

Three-Five didn’t know, but he was too giddy to care right now. And it was definitely better than dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando'a translations:
> 
> Vod, vode- brother, brothers  
> Di'kut- idiot  
> Osik- shit  
> Kaminiise- Kaminoans


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of Library." — Jorge Luis Borges

CT-3609 braced himself as the docking clamps engaged. General Ti was only taking them a short hop away from Kamino to a refueling station just inside Republic space where they would meet their new CO, Jocasta Nu, and travel with her the rest of the way to Coruscant. General Ti wasn’t able to leave Kamino for long periods of time right now, especially since she had just overruled the longnecks about killing clones. She hadn't said it quite like that, but Oh-Nine could read between the lines. No Kaminiise would take kindly to being told that their methodology was faulty. He hoped there wasn’t unmanageable trouble headed for the General. She had likely made her future time on Kamino a lot more uncomfortable than before in her efforts to save him and his new squad. He was _so_ grateful, no question, but...it still seemed unreal to him, that the Jedi would go to such trouble for a bunch of aberrant clones marked for decom. He kept wondering if there was a catch.

But right now they were docking at the station, so he shoved those thoughts away and squared his shoulders. Whatever would come would come, and at least he was alive to face it.

They filed off the shuttle after General Ti and down a short corridor to another docking bay. A short, whitehaired human woman was standing in the doorway, shoulders back and spine straight. Jedi Master Nu, though General Ti said that most people called her Madame Nu for reasons that didn't make any sense to Oh-Nine. Something about academic honors? She didn't look that imposing at first glance, but something in her posture and bearing had him reassessing that notion the closer they got. Part of it was the same sort of...Jedi-ness that General Ti exuded. But there was also the edge of something he couldn’t quite put a finger on that somehow reminded him of a vod.

“Delivered as promised, Madame Nu,” General Ti said lightly as they reached the doorway.

“Thank you, Master Ti.” Madame Nu surveyed them and nodded. “Gentlemen, welcome. It is good to meet you.”

“Good to be here, sir,” Oh-Nine said, and his brothers nodded fervently behind him.

“Just so. If you would all be so kind as to board the transport, we can be on our way.” She stepped to the side and gestured at the ship behind her.

“May the Force be with you all,” General Ti said softly. The clones saluted, then turned and walked to the transport. Oh-Nine waved his vode past, lingering just a touch to make sure they had no trouble, and so he saw the farewell between the Jedi.

Madame Nu grasped the taller woman’s hand. “Give ‘em hell, Shaak.”

General Ti flashed a grin, wide and sharp and predatory, a far cry from her previous careful smiles. “Knock ‘em dead, Jo.”

Madame Nu grinned back.

 _Oh_ , Oh-Nine thought, startled. _That was—well, Madame Nu seemed like she would make one hell of a vod._

*****

CT-9785 waited just inside the boarding ramp with most of his new squad, all of them unsure where they were supposed to go in the transport. Oh-Nine was bringing up the rear, a position he had taken with the ease of long habit. It didn’t surprise Eight-Five, not after hearing why Oh-Nine had been sent to decom. 

Madame Nu followed him up the ramp and moved briskly through the knot of cadets, saying, “Come along, there are six seats in the cockpit. Do any of you have pilot training?” They all shook their heads. That was part of the reason they were here, after all; none of them had displayed enough aptitude for specializations to make the trainers overlook their faults. Madame Nu seemed unphased by that. “Do any of you want to learn?”

“Now?” Three-Five asked, startled.

She buckled herself into the pilot’s chair and began flicking through the warmup sequence. “No time like the present.”

Seven-Oh made an aborted move beside Eight-Five. Eight-Five glanced at him, saw the flicker of longing in his eyes, the fear and wariness that rose to smother it. Eight-Five bumped his knuckles against Seven-Oh’s wrist and cocked his head in encouragement.

Seven-Oh swallowed, trembled, but stepped forward. “Can I learn?” 

Madame Nu nodded. “Take the co-pilot’s seat; I will lead you through the pre-flight checks.”

Seven-Oh hurried to the chair. The rest of them found their own seats. Eight-Five buckled his harness slowly, listening to Madame Nu matter-of-factly explain the correct procedure. He hadn’t really believed General Ti when she said that Madame Nu had specifically requested himself and these brothers. He assumed it was just a turn of phrase, some nice words covering up an assignment which some bleeding heart Jedi had scraped together as charity for defective clones. Now he wasn’t so sure. Madame Nu was patient, steady. She talked Seven-Oh through each step, instructions delivered in precisely worded and manageable chunks. Seven-Oh slowly relaxed under her tutelage, quiet enthusiasm replacing his wounded shyness. 

“Very good,” Madame Nu said with palpable approval when they completed the sequence and disengaged from the dock. Seven-Oh blinked at her, apparently stunned by the praise of a superior officer. Eight-FIve grimaced. None of them had had good experiences with authority, but he suspected that Seven-Oh had had it worst.

Madame Nu swung them away from the station with as deft a touch as any of the flight specialists Eight-Five had seen in the sims. The nav computer reported that their course was laid in for Coruscant and that they were cleared for the hyperspace jump. Madame Nu glanced at Seven-Oh with a straight face but a sly gleam in her eyes and nodded to the jump lever. “Punch it, co-pilot.”

He blinked again, then gave her a shaky grin, and pulled the lever down. 

*****

CT-9481 glanced at his brothers as the shuttle was cleared for landing on Coruscant. They were nervous; the sense of unreality that had clung to the voyage from Kamino was dissipating. They were actually landing now, actually going to go to the Jedi Temple and discover exactly what this new life was like. Madame Nu had told them about the Temple and the Archives while they traveled. She had been very patient with their questions, a thousand times more patient than any trainer or longneck on Kamino. But there was only so much they could learn from her descriptions when they were missing most of the context. Training on Kamino was heavy on the mechanics of war and light on everything else in the galaxy. They spoke the same language, but Eight-One wasn't naive enough to think they were having the exact same conversation.

Besides, he always learned best through watching.

So he watched his brothers twitch and fidget, watched the endless city grow beneath them, watched as the Temple came closer and closer. It was a monolith, completely foreign to his experience. This was going to be their base for the foreseeable future.

He hoped it came with a map.

They landed. He shifted, his own nerves getting the better of him, and Oh-Nine flashed him a tiny smile and knocked their forearms together. Oh-Nine was steady, Eight-One thought. If he was rattled he hid it better than the rest of them.

Madame Nu finished the final shutdown and swiveled her chair to face them. "Welcome to the Temple, gentlemen."

They followed her off the ship. Eight-One did his best not to crane his head and stare, but it was difficult. He'd seen other species in flash training and sims, but it was a completely different experience to see them in person. It was a little overwhelming, the variety of life here. He could only remember maybe half of the species he saw, and that was only in the hangar bay.

They moved into the Temple proper and he felt like he'd stepped into a dream, except he knew he'd never seen anything like this for his subconscious to use in dreaming. Vaulted ceilings, soaring columns, looming statues. A brilliant flood of color from stained glass windows spilling across intricately patterned tiles.

It was breathtakingly lovely.

 _What was it like,_ he wondered, _to grow up here? What filter did it install in Jedi to see the rest of the galaxy through?_

How had the clones been built for the Jedi when the Jedi came from _this?_

The Kaminiise and the trainers had made it a point again and again that the clones were property, were made to give their lives in service to the war, in service to the Jedi, that they had no purpose beyond that. The clones were soldiers, designed and bred for war. They knew it, blood and bones and DNA. Even the halls of Kamino were a warzone of a sort. Eight-One _knew_ war, viscerally, gut deep.

He could see that the Jedi did not. They might know it in theory, and sometimes in practice, but only individually. Not as a whole.

 _Is that why they made us, then? To fill in their gaps?_

But if clones were made to die, why had he been saved from decommissioning to serve in the temple?

It wasn't a question he would have ever dared consider before. Maybe not even think. But now….

_'Clones who don't just blindly follow orders, but who question them. Who question everything.'_

Maybe.

They finally arrived at the entrance to the Archives. 

Eight-One took one step inside and fell instantly, irrevocably in love. It was _beautiful._ The light from countless datapads shimmered like the star-blur of hyperspace over polished floors and distant ceilings. The halls stretched out from the central rotunda, potent with mystery and promise. It felt like looking into infinity, like an endless ocean that would take a lifetime to plumb the depths of, one in which he would happily spend a thousand eternities drowning in. 

Clones didn’t have much of a religion. What they did have was cobbled together, scrounged up bits and pieces that they had made their own. They didn’t really have a conceptualized afterlife, other than the Mandalorian tradition of Remembrances and the poetic conceit of marching ahead.

But if there was an afterlife, a paradise waiting somewhere for clones, he hoped it would look exactly like this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando'a translations:
> 
> Kaminiise- Kaminoans  
> Vod, vode- brother, brothers

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Overdue Returns](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27175393) by [Papook](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Papook/pseuds/Papook)




End file.
